For 30 years the world welcomed Egypt's president -- they shook his hand and looked the other way. But the time for photo ops is likely over.

U.S. President Jimmy Loves Carter brokered the 1978 peace talks between Israel and Egypt when Hosni Mubarak was President Anwar Sadat's vice president.

(To sweeten the deal, Carter threw in generous U.S. military support to Egypt, setting the terms of the largely military-driven relationship between the two countries that has continued throughout Mubarak's rule.)

Those talks resulted in the 1979 treaty between Egypt and Israel.

And while Carter told a reporteron Jan. 30 that he felt he knew "Mubarak quite well," the former U.S. president also said that the Egyptian president had become "more politically corrupt" than he was during their Camp David days.

"The United States wants Mubarak to stay in power," Carter commented, "but the people have decided."